


The Fish in the Galaxy

by LibraLibrary



Category: Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!
Genre: AU, Implied Supernatural stuff, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-18
Updated: 2014-06-18
Packaged: 2018-02-05 04:24:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1805191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LibraLibrary/pseuds/LibraLibrary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ellison smiled, tracing little circles in the water that were followed by a few curious minnows. "When I was little, someone in my family, can't remember, maybe someone female...they read me a story. About a magical train to the afterlife, and the things you can see on it. There was a lullaby that went with it too, about meeting the fish in the galaxy, and reaching someone important that's gone..."</p><p>In the aftermath of a loss, Ellison sees something impossible, and shows a curious Gibson a piece of her world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fish in the Galaxy

**Author's Note:**

> A big inspiration for my OC's character was the song Campanella by GUMI, which contained a line roughly translated in some PVs as "I want to meet the fish in the Milky Way galaxy." Decided to write something quick for her to serve as a sort of companion piece to my previous work Merge. Both are OC based, and spotlight their "superpowers" in some way. Set Between I, Chiro and The Savage Lands Part 1.

Slight whirring accompanied by the tapp-tapp-tapp of metal on metal. Soft clicks spaced between short bursts of silence as each room was checked. The length of the pauses suggested hesitancy, or a careful examination of each potential hiding space. Someone familiar with her response to stress, but still distant enough to be nervous about a confrontation.

Gibson.

Remarkable how they could tune out the noises made simply by virtue of being cyborgs. Lifetimes of mechanical ambiance had conditioned their minds to not process the sounds anymore. They could easily sneak up on each other by accident, while Ellison and R'lya could hear them coming a mile away. 

Ellison couldn't be bothered to move. If he could muster up the courage to talk to her at a time like this, let him. I wasn't every day he sought her out for conversation.

Then again, it wasn't every day she threw such a fit.

He finally peeked around the doorway to Nova's room, catching sight of her. She had, as she had done many months ago after the discovery of Jinmay's lost head, surrounded herself with a circle of plush dolls, curled up in the center with her knees to her chin. She didn't look up, but she could almost feel his eyes burning a hole into her scalp.

The two of them remained stock still in their positions for several minutes, and if Gibson was searching for the right way to approach a conversation, he never found it. Ellison, realizing that it would be cruel to expect anything more forward than looking for her at all, decided to initiate.

"I know he's dead."

The tone was harsh and accusatory, the blunt force of the words only adding to the venom of the statement. Gibson flinched. For a second, he almost didn't recognize her voice.

"I was there with you," she continued, "and I saw him. I'm aware he's dead. If you're here to convince me, there's no need."

"I had no intention-!"

She glanced up at him with speed and force so abrupt that she almost knocked herself back. "Are you sure? Because everyone else seems to think I'm such a wreck that I can't even remember it happening. And now all of you are walking around on eggshells trying to break the news gently and quite frankly it was bad enough watching, so I don't NEED you to remind me that _I have completely lost it!_ "

Her last words echoed around the steel walls like vicious taunts, and she pulled her knees back up, hugging her calves with all her might. The echoes died out, and Gibson broke the silence, with a soft voice but firm tone. "You have NOT lost it. None of us think that. Everyone responds to grief dif-"

"This isn't how I respond to grief, Gibson. This hasn't ever happened before."

"But how would you know-"

Her eyes met his, and for a moment he was almost startled. There was a sort of sharpness in her gaze, like a sword held forward in warning that he was overstepping. "You think I don't know grief? My entire family has been missing for years now, not a single trace has turned up in all of our searching, and you think I'm so naive that I believe there's a _chance_ that any of them are still alive?"

The entire robot seemed to fall silent; it was as if the entire world had witnessed her open up. Dazed by the shockingly personal revelation, he cautiously wandered over to sit beside the circle of stuffed animals. A surprisingly amicable gesture, but Ellison was too lost in her own thoughts to pay it much recognition. She fell back, letting the coolness of the floor spread across her back.

"...I _saw_ him, Gibson. I heard his voice. He was _right there_."

The blue monkey flinched, and nodded. "I...I know."

Her gaze was empty, pointed towards the ceiling like it held all the answers. "You don't. I'm serious; he was _there_. If I hadn't...if I hadn't seen him die, I would've thought it was _real_."

Gibson, surprisingly enough, believed her. Of course they all knew Antauri was gone, they had all seen it. And while anyone else onboard the robot might have carried a slight capacity for superstition, he put very little faith in the idea of ghosts and apparitions. But when Ellison all but crashed into the control room, eyes wide and wild as a startled horse, and began breathlessly demanding to know "where he went" and how they "could have missed him; there was nowhere else to go", he _believed her_. Something in her tearful assertions shouted above attempts to comfort and quiet her had struck a cord; it was impossible, in every sense of the word, for her to have seen Antauri walk down that hallway and go through that door, but she had. 

It was entirely impossible, and she knew it, and it terrified her. That's why he believed, why he refused the notion that she was suffering temporary insanity. She knew to be afraid.

Gibson was wrenched from his musings by a swishing of skirts as Ellison stood and moved to the door. She leaned against the wall, massaging her temples. "I need some air. If one more maintenance alarm goes off I'm going to run screaming into the night."

He rose to meet her. "At this hour? Alone in a wrecked city?"

She shot a weary smile at him. "Not if you're volunteering to join me."

For the first time in 48 hours, Gibson managed a smile.

~*~

 _So this is where she disappears to when I need her,_ the scientist wondered to himself.

When he agreed to join Ellison on her late night walk, he had expected a quick visit to the park, or even a short trek to the beach. Instead, she had made a beeline for the woods at the edge of town, leading him far into the trees. It was about the time they passed the area where, years ago, Chiro had stumbled upon his new family (the thought of a time when Chiro was nothing but a curious stranger, flipping the switch that awakened and freed the wary team, gave Gibson pause; was it really not so long ago that their leader meant nothing to them?) that he started to get worried. Shortly after that, they arrived at the small clearing, with its small clusters of wildflowers and smooth-surfaced pond, and he suddenly understood why she would travel so far. Even if he ran to the other side of the lake and stood at the highest point in the area, it would be impossible to see the shattered buildings of the city, and none of the destruction had reached out into the uninhabited woods.

Ellison sat by the edge of the water, where the ground suddenly dropped off to a depth of approximately five feet, a possible remnant of a long forgotten celestial impact, or maybe even a battle between two ancient beasts. She motioned for her friend to join her, and he grinned at her as he sat. "How did you ever find this place?"

"I followed the butterflies," she replied casually, as if it were the most normal and obvious statement possible. Of course, for her, it was. "Back when we first arrived on the planet. I saw them, and I followed them to get a good picture, and they led me here."

"Well...that was very nice of them."

"It was. This is a special place."

He leaned back, enjoying the gentle breeze that barely disturbed the glassy surface of the water. "I can see why," he murmured, soothed by the lack of alarms and whistles.

She smiled, shifting to lie on her stomache, and stared at her reflection. "Not yet you can." He glanced at her quizzically, and she dipped her right hand into the water. "This is where the fish in the galaxy live."

The fish in the galaxy. He had heard that one before, normally in the middle of a panicked rant or an offhanded ramble. She had never really explained it before, though, and he opened his mouth to ask.

And then the clouds across the moon drifted away.

As if a curtain had been moved aside, the pond and clearing alit with the light of the full moon, turning a dark wood into a landscape of blues and silvers. With the light, Gibson finally became aware that the pond was far from uninhabited; dozens of long, colorful fish lazily moved under the surface, some coming up to the edge to investigate Ellison's fingers. Surprised, Gibson leaned out over the surface, and suddenly understood her words.

The still, glassy surface of the lake, while now clear enough to see the fish, reflected the night sky faintly. Approaching the center, a bright white orb shone above a small school, and several swimmers breaching the surface glided past tiny, twinkling stars shimmering around them.

Gibson was stunned. "The...fish in the galaxy..."

Ellison smiled, tracing little circles in the water that were followed by a few curious minnows. "When I was little, someone in my family, can't remember, maybe someone female...they read me a story. About a magical train to the afterlife, and the things you can see on it. There was a lullaby that went with it too, about meeting the fish in the galaxy, and reaching someone important that's gone..."

She shook her head, as if amused by her own childish nostalgia. "Back when I still thought we could find the others, back when I first found this place...I won't lie. For a minute, I thought I had actually found those fish in the galaxy."

Gibson, now leaning directly over the water to see the spectacle, glanced back at her. "Are...these not the right fish?"

She softly sighed, and shook her head with a gentle smile. "You still don't get it, do you?"

He didn't, that much was obvious by his befuddled look. Her laugh, however, was infectious, and he caught himself chuckling in spite of himself. She hopped up, and stretched, yawning. "I think that's enough fresh air for now. If we don't get back soon, R'lya will probably tear the city apart even more looking for me."

The blue monkey agreed, and she helped him to his feet. The pair headed back slowly, reluctant to leave the little quiet place. They were silent on the way back, both lost in their thoughts; Gibson trying to decode the meaning of the fish, and Ellison thinking back to her earlier encounter.

Just as they reached the area where the forest gave way to the outskirts of the city, she nudged her friend with her elbow. "Can you...I think...R'lya doesn't have to know what I told you. About...our people. I think she *likes* being the cynical realist, because she thinks I'll always be there to reassure her. If she knew I didn't believe half the things I told her-"

His hand was on her shoulder before she could even finish that thought. "Of course not. If you promise not to tell the rest of the team."

"Tell them what?"

He turned, continuing on his way. "That I believe that you really saw something impossible today."

She blinked, stunned, then grinned, hurrying to catch up. "You're patronizing me now, aren't you!"

"Me? Wouldn't dream of it, Miss Ellison."

~*~  
 _  
She loved watching the stars pass outside. The celestial bodies in Shuggazoom's galaxy had become too familiar for her tastes; being out in the wide expanses, where nebulas and formations swirled in every conceivable shape and color. She could honestly watch for hours._

_"Looking for those galaxy fish, Ellison?"_

_She turned to Sprx, sticking her tongue out with a grin. Behind him, Gibson looked up from his latest project. "Of course not, Sprx. All of the fish are in the Robot."_

_The rest of the team looked between the two, puzzled, and Ellison laughed. "Not all of them. But you're learning."_

~*~

Ellison blinked, surprised to find herself curled up in Gibson's seat. She had vaguely remembered the walk back to the Robot, and her exhaustion upon returning. She didn't remember grabbing a blanket; someone on the Robot deserved a massive hug.

She also remembered a conversation she hadn't had yet. One between her and a friend, on a ship traversing the galaxy, meeting strange people and heading to strange places, with a dead companion present.

She curled back up in the chair, yawning. There'd be time to figure it out in the morning, when everyone was busy trying to fix the Robot and find their lost leader.

She dreamed of a train, and fish, and stars.


End file.
